Three ex-wives, one widow and four sets of children ranging from in age from six years old to nearly 40 are called together by the sudden death of their common husband and father in Hannah Pittard's second novel, Reunion.
Kate is the youngest of the three children of Stan Pulaski's late first wife. Deeply in debt and desperate to save her marriage, she is en route to Chicago to attempt the latter when she learns that her father has killed himself. Her brother and sister insist that she meet them back in their hometown of Atlanta to deal with the aftermath, so Kate heads back to the city--and the extended family--that she has avoided for years. Kate's resentment of her father's philandering and dishonesty has long kept her at a distance, but what unfolds over several days with her oldest and youngest siblings will force her to face just how much like Stan she really is.
Pittard (The Fates Will Find Their Way) takes a risk by making self-absorbed, often-oblivious, admittedly dishonest Kate Reunion's narrator; Kate's narrow perspective limits the development of other, potentially more engaging characters and their stories. However, Pittard is working with a fertile premise here--a family's discovery of one another's secrets following the death of its patriarch--that bears some unexpected and affecting fruit. The framework feels reminiscent of Jonathan Tropper's This Is Where I Leave You, but the messy blending of Pittard's Pulaski clan gives a familiar construction some very particular complications. --Florinda Pendley Vasquez, blogger at The 3 R's Blog: Reading, 'Riting, and Randomness